Navalny toxin likely synthetic, dart frog experts sayAFP, QUITOSouth American dart frog experts on Monday said that the toxin alleged to have killed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was likely a lab-produced replica rather than harvested directly from the wild. The frogs themselves are easy enough to come by, both legally with permits and illegally for a few dollars. Golden poison frogs, a species of poison dart frog, sit inside the amphibian house at the Cali Zoo in Cali, Colombia, on Monday. Despite images of spies roaming the jungles of Ecuador or the black market, experts said it is more likely that the toxin was a synthetic copy rather than the real thing. “The alkaloids in the skin of captive-bred frogs differ a lot from wild frogs,” he said.

Source: Taipei Times February 17, 2026 18:45 UTC